Monday, June 20, 2016

As creative as a stone, henge the title...

Most of my time in the actual ruins of Bath and Stonehenge were spent looking at really old things, and trying to wrap my head around how old it was, here I was looking at it, some 5 millennia later, wondering why someone would want to cleanse themselves here. The person that placed that there didn't have any idea that in a couple(million) days, some guy from a continent that doesn't exist yet will take a photo of it, however with all the theories surrounding Stonehenge I could be wrong.

Artifacts help us understand human history, in fact they are pretty much the only understanding of most of human history we have. It is very rare to find something that goes as far back as the Romans, and even rarer to find something older than the Great Pyramids and recorded human history itself. That is why Stonehenge attracts so many visitors everyday, because it is such an integral part of our understanding of the capabilities and intelligence of early humans. We know just from those large rocks, that humans 5,000 years ago figured out how to move them hundreds of kilometers, hoist them up and on top of each other, and recognize astronomical patterns, that is just the surface, and I'm not an archaeologist.
Tourists go to places like this to better their knowledge as well, its nice to have a general idea of what happened before they arrived on Earth. It is extremely educational, and experiencing artifacts first hand helps us retain knowledge and have personal reference points to understand the physical characteristics of something, like understanding just how large Stonehenge is. It also helps us to understand our present, relative to the past, and event some more recent events like tourism itself and how it has defaced these objects. We view these ancient civilizations with awe and wonder, and almost in a condescending way, it begs the question how will humans look at us now?

These people left their mark on the world, the things they constructed or made are still here today, it is really inspiring and scary to wonder what will be left of humans today? Will we make a timeless mark on the world? How primitive will humans alive today seem to future humans 5,000 years from now, what buildings and architecture will still be around? It really causes people to ask the more important questions, and helps people learn from our past. I learned a lot personally from looking at that ancient Roman Bath House and circle of worship. I came away knowing more about the roman occupation of what is now Britain, and the ancient peoples of Europe, and how little we know of them. I learned more about Stonehenge beyond mysticism, and that there is much more there than the rocks themselves, including human remains and tools.

And lastly locations like these are places of renewed use and importance, and in a way, serving the same purpose of bringing people from a far to one place to observe and interact with each other.